Wednesday, September 30, 2020

Grief Shopping for a House or How Not to Deal with Death

          On last week's episode we had learned that our heroine was awashed in grief. Rather than turning to the usual devices of grief control - drugs, alcohol, shaving her head, or binge watching Netflix - she decided to buy a new house. This was grief shopping to the extreme. Our heroine was obviously lost and a little crazy in the head, but she was being driven by her strong emotions and a narcissist real estate brother who was desperate for a sale. Would her childhood demons take her down the path of a bigger mortgage or would common sense prevail? Lets tune in.

       Our heroine is answering the phone...

        "Hello." 

        "Hi, my name is C. from the C.'s Team and I scheduled your photos for your house on Friday." 

        "What? That's not what real estate brother said. I can't be ready by Friday. My bathroom is torn apart to the sub flooring. The house is a mess. I have a trash pile out back."

         "Well, we want the house listed by such and such date, so it has to be this Friday."

        "Umm, I won't be ready." 

        "Then we can't list it by next week and we want to do that, so I have the photos scheduled." 

        "Wait, real estate brother said if I wasn't ready we could just take a photo of the outside."

        "We don't like to do that. We want all the photos when we list the house." 

        "That's not going to work. I need to talk to real estate brother."

        "I'm just trying to get your house listed by the date you wanted."

        "I understand that, but I won't be ready." 

         Quick goodbyes, and click, followed by frustrated screaming. Our heroine is clearly feeling her inability to have a confrontation, in the chest, in the gut. Calls real estate brother. Sets the time for a little bit later. 

         A week later and the house is clean. The bathroom isn't completely finished, but it will have to work. There is a huge garage pile in the back ready for a dump load- the old sink, the old toilet, and junk from the sub flooring. Surely, the photographer won't take a photo of the garage pile for the listing photos.

        He takes a photo of the garage pile. But it's a good looking photo on the official MLS listing site. 

        The listing goes live and suddenly there are a hundred million real estate agents wanting to see the house. Our heroine is overwhelmed as she repeatedly packs up kids and dog and escapes the house. One real estate agent doesn't realize that the door was locked and just thought it was stuck and proceeded to try to bust down her door. Luckily, the trim was easily repaired. 

       Another real estate agent starts complaining to her about the Team's lock box system. 

         Like she has any control over it. "Please, complain to me some more, I will change their whole system for you," she thought to herself as she said out loud, "They just put it on my house."  

        If she had any lingering thoughts of becoming a real estate agent, they were killed with every interaction she experienced with the real estate agents. Our heroine wasn't saying the reputation of real estate agents was earned, but they started to remind her of used car salesmen in better suits and expensive shoes. (No offense to used car salesmen.) 

        In twenty-four hours an offer comes through, it's only 3500 less than what they were asking and real estate brother says it's the best offer they are going to get, so they better take it. She was already not happy with the listing price and now she's supposed to take 3500 less in a market where houses in her neighborhood are going like hot cakes. Like cupcakes during the cupcake craze. Like donuts used to before cupcakes took over. Either way, she thinks they should wait for a slightly better offer. 

      But she's a people pleaser and so she says...yes. 

      Our heroine is slowly starting to realize she might be her own worse enemy. And the childhood poverty. But her lack of backbone is certainty dragging her down a path she feels unable to leave. 

     And the more she crunches she the numbers, the more she worries that although the mortgage lender says she can afford more house payment...her bank account is screaming at her with a different story.

    But does she listen to the bank account. No, she shuts him up and tells herself she's going ahead with the path, because to say something different might make her a failure. 

    Why couldn't our heroine just shave her head like normal people? 

     

         

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